Obama now believes he’ll win in a landslide

Story out today from UK Telegraph about Obama’s inner circle, including the senator himself, feeling as if they’re going to win in a landslide come November. They cite internal polling and something about hope and change.

Their optimism, which is said to be shared by the Democratic candidate himself, is based on information from private polling and on faith in the powerful political organisation he has built in the key swing states.

Insiders say that Mr Obama’s apparent calm through an unusually turbulent election season is because he believes that his strength among first time voters in several key states has been underestimated, both by the media and by the Republican Party.

Mr Obama has come under fire from within Democratic ranks over his message and his tactics. Critics say he has failed to connect with the blue-collar workers seen as crucial to winning the election, and too reluctant to make direct attacks on Mr McCain.

But his aides are convinced that he has a strong chance of winning no fewer than nine states won by George W.Bush in the closely contested 2000 election, including former Republican strongholds like North Carolina, Virginia and even Indiana, which have not voted Democrat for a generation.

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, said last week that Obama had “a lot of opportunity” in states which Mr Bush won four years ago.

But in private briefings in Washington, a member of Mr Obama’s inner circle of policy advisers went much further in spelling out why the campaign’s working assumptions far exceed the expectations of independent observers.

“Public polling companies and the media have underestimated the scale of new Democratic voters registration in these states,” the campaign official told a friend. “We’re much stronger on the ground in Virginia and North Carolina than people realise. If we get out the vote this may not be close at all.”

Not toss a wet blanket on this party, but we’ve heard the “scale of new Democratic voter registrations” argument before, in 2004 with Bush against Kerry. This time around may be different, perhaps. It seems to me that “new voters” are no necessarily “reliable voters.” As in, you got them registered, that’s fantastic, now just get them to the actual polling places on November 4th.

That being said, there is no doubt that the Obama campaign has a much stronger organizational presence since they’ve been at this for nearly 2 years. McCain is playing catchup in that realm.

Just a few days I read pollster John Zogby discussing how he thinks it will be McCain who wins in a landslide. Here’s the report on that from the Boston Herald:

John Zogby, president of Zogby International, told a coffee and number-crunching crowd in Rochester, N.Y., that one of the presidential candidates will walk away with a mountain of votes.

Zogby said Barack Obama still needs to sell himself to the country. If not, voters will likely side with “a comfortable old shoe.” That shoe is John McCain, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle quoted Zogby as saying.

Zogby questioned if Americans are still asking of Obama, “Who are you, where are you from?”

While either scenario is of course possible, I think the “landslide” predictions 30 days out given the tight poll numbers are a little misinformed. Then again, I don’t have access to the Obama campaigns insider polling but the race is so fluid, things change everyday and we have more debates.

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Nate

I have said it before and I will say it again. I think the close polls that are in the press are nothing more but to keep the entertainment factor there and to keep us tuned in.

One Candidate is going to win by a landslide, I believe.

Personally, my opinion is that it is going to be Obama.

bdjnk

As I said in a previous post, Obama seems to live in a private fantasy land. What I didn’t realize is that it is only semi-private. Evidently his advisers have been invited in as well.

I have just two words for Obama: Bradly Effect

Look it up.

Dennis Bland

i’ve been following the polls pretty closely state by state over at realclearpolitics.com. The thing is, this election is only 5 weeks away, by now the general strategy is laid out and the candidates are sticking to it. I think with so little time, it’ll be hard to erase leads/deficits of 5% points or greater in any state, barring some catastrophe. If you count all states outside of the 5 point margin, you’ve basically got Barack Obama with 228 e.c. votes to McCains 163, with 147 still up for grabs spread over 11 states. To get to 270 and win the election, Barack basically needs to grab just 2 or 3 of these 11, whereas McCain essentially needs to win all of them. I chalk it up to that if McCain loses any one of Indiana, Ohio, Flordia, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri, he just cannot put enough electorial college votes to get to 270. State polls for North Carolina and Virginia show Obama ahead, and McCain leads by less than 2% points in Ohio and Flordia, and barely over 2% in Indiana.

The only feasible way for McCain to win is if something were to happen to bring states like Colorado, Michigan, and New Jersey back into play, because there is close to zero chance McCain can run the table and win all those major states I listed before, especially if the economy continues to be on peoples mind.

Grey

Well, I think it’s a little much to assume anything about what a particular candidate may be thinking- bias can twist that up rather quickly.

I will say this- if Obama is overconfident, I believe it will greatly mitigate his chances of winning. I think Obama’s surge of popularity over this past election sequence rides mainly on two things- the charisma that he has and the underdog effect.

I only assume this because while he can close a gap in the polls at lightning speeds (he was down to Hillary by 30% going in to primary season), I’ve never seen him winning any poll by much more than 5%. People seem to like him more when he’s losing.

If he loses the underdog appeal, I don’t think things will go smoothly for him.

U.S.A.

McCain tried to play hero about this bail out and now we see that the Republicans are the ones who shut this down. Obama don’t have to try. McCain will hand it over. When Palin opens her mouth it will only hurt him worse.
777 points today. A new record for McCain to show for his bid to save everybody. I don’t care what happened years ago when McCain was a POW. He is a loser now, and Palin makes him look good!

Fred

We Dems own both houses. How can it be the republicans who shut it down? We don’t need the republicans we could have done it ourselves. Sometimes we need to not worry about being blamed (man up Pelosi).

How the UK Telegraph can get a story like this beggars belief for starters, but the fact they cite ‘internal polling’ as a source for their story is absolutely laughable.

I did an internal poll in my house this morning to see who should cut the grass, funnily enough I won the vote in a landslide….go figure for internal polling…LOL

I think the race will be close, unless Sarah Palincoherent has a meltdown on Thursday, which after the Couric interview is a possibility, then Obama could win easily. Saying that, Biden might say something stupid like the ‘truth’ and then it could go McCains way.

Whatever happens it’ll be fun to watch.

OBAMA_SUCKS

Fred, That was one of the most intelligent answers by a democrat on hear. Thank you for stating the truth, while the person above you decided to blame republicans and again attack McCain on his POW story like always.

Odonata28

I don’t understand how it’s the dems fault that the bailout failed when more dems voted for it than republicans??

140 dems, 65 republicans.

January 20, 2009

Aside from being a POW, can someone enlighten me as to what McCain’s stance is in regards to this presidential race? To me, McCain is simply the “anti-Obama,” but we really have no idea what he plans to tackle as president. This fact was evident in the debates.

Further, if voters think a hockey mom who just recently got a passport is able to sub-run this country, then we have more issues than a 700 billion-dollar buyout can fix!

Well McCain wants to leave Iraq victorious, but he hasn’t mentioned what exactly equals victory. I think if he gave a list of all the objectives he wishes to achieve in Iraq and once achieved that’s victory, people would have a better understanding. At the moment ‘victory’ in Iraq is just a word with no clear definition.

As for Palin, don’t forget hockey moms are the same as pitbulls apart from lipstick, but not lipstick on a pig, because that would be a sexist comment, well not really a sexist comment as Palin doesn’t think that whining about such stuff helps women.

Steve O.

I do not know if it will be a landslide victory but the victory will go to Barack Obama either way. The reason republicans do not like him is because they know its true. He is not a product of the good ole boy network and did not know a friend to get him where he is now. Everything you see now is from hard work and Barack Obama being a self made man. Instead of talking bad about him, those who do not know him should do research and not expect information to be fed to them. If you care about your children and the generations to come then maybe you should pick a president that is also thinking about the future and not just the four years he is going to be in office. If you want to challenge me on my position, feel free.

Gramps

“I have just two words for Obama: Bradly Effect”

bsjnk – i don’t want to say wishful thinking but i have my doubts as to the significance of the BE in this race. my understanding is that this originates from ’82 wherein a ‘superb’ black guy ran against a ‘not so superb’ white candidate. in this scenario, whites conveniently stated that they would vote for the superb black guy but in the end voted for the other (white, not so superb) candidate. In this scenario, a BE is quite understandable; it’s like colon powell running against david duke. the racist is say he or she is voting for colon p but in the end votes for david d. by any measure mccain is no less superb than obama and thus no person – black or white – would feel uncomfortable stating a preference for mccain vs obama. i would venture to say that a reverse BE is more likely than an outright BE – i.e., some whites in conservative communities are more likely to publicly state a preference for mccain but in the end vote for obama.

finally, it’s 2008 and not 1982. most people born in the mid-50s and beyond don’t see race the same as this 66 year old white guy from the south. i’ve reconciled the race thing and will proudly vote for BO on the 4th.

susan

The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do state-by-state, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes– 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

The most popular votes wins would be far simpler and easier than the state by state thing they’ve got going on at the moment. It’s what goes on in most democratic countries with very little problem.

emeraldrain

Now we See the the Polls were not close. The republicians up the the final day, Laura Inghram, Rush Limebaugh, and others were saying it is close. The were big Liars using scare tactics. I’m so glad they were wrong. The reason Obama was confident was because his ground had done there homework.
Obama had a better team working with him.